The datafile contains the composition and abundance of airborne pollen in Christchurch, New Zealand. The data was collected for the period between November 1988 to February 1989 as part of a nationwide survey of airborne pollen. This forms part of a study of the Australian Aerobiology working group (Haberle, Bowman, Newnham, Johnston, Beggs, Buters, Campbell, Erbas, Godwin, Green, Heute, Jaggard, Medek, Murray, Newbiggin, Thibaudon, Vicendese, Williamson, Davies “The macroecology of airborne pollen in Australian and New Zealand urban areas”).
Credit
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
This work was funded by ACEAS, a facility of Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) project.
Lineage
Airborne pollen counts were derived from deployment of the Intermittent Cycling Rotorod sampler located on a rooftops at 20 m above the ground. In New Zealand the Intermittent Cycling Rotorod sampler is an impaction collector with a retracting collector rod sampling head. Particles are collected on the leading, greased, edge of two 1.59 x 32 mm clear polystyrene collector rods spun intermittently by an electric motor at 2400 rev./min. The samplers were set-up to operate for 6 minutes every hour. Sampling rods were replaced every 24 hours, stained with Calberla's solution, and examined under a transmitted light microscope. Analysis of each 24-hr period is conducted by counting four transects at 400 magnification. The data is summed to provide an average weekly pollen count in grains per cubic meter.